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Saturday, 11 February 2017

A Bad Day At The Office For Jake Burgess. Excel lose - no proof of driver

Lamilad had a large number of parking charges issued against his vehicle, but he was not the driver. He posted some comments on a pepipoo forum which Jake Burgess, Excel's representative, tried to twist to say he was lying when he said he was not the driver.

Excel already lost one case regarding some of the tickets. Here is how the second went down on the day.

Jake had been asked to get the transcript from case #1, and Excel had to file a further statement saying how they could rely on POFA (they couldn’t), and how they could infer from his thread on Pepipoo that he had been driving (they couldn’t do that either).

Jake Burgess submitted a second Witness Statement for Excel in December, which was basically a character assassination on Lamilad attacking his credibility and twisting his comments made on the forum. Lamilad considered it really quite offensive and borderline defamatory.... but supposed that desperation can lead to such behaviour.

In his pepipoo thread he'd stated that he couldn't remember the event or who was driving, but in his Witness Statement he'd stated that he definitely was not driving. Jake tried to say both can't be true therefore Lamilad was lying and not a 'credible' witness.

The problem (for Jake) was the thread he was quoting from was about the previous case back in November, involving a different vehicle and which had no bearing on this case whatsoever. Lamilad addressed the comment (which was among the first few comments posted), by saying truthfully that at the time of receiving the court papers he could not recollect an otherwise unremarkable event on an unremarkable day. It was only as he investigated further, over the coming weeks and months, that he knew that he couldn't have been the driver and so was able to state as much in his witness statement.

Jake also picked up on a comment where Lamilad said he uses the car park regularly yet in both cases he had stated that he had not ever driven either vehicle to the car park in question. This is true as he was referring to the fact that he used to use the car park regularly a few years ago when he owned a different vehicle.

Bargepole and Coupon-mad helped with a rebuttal document, and both parties returned in front of the same judge.

In the hearing Jake went on about these apparent inconsistencies for ages trying to say his comments didn't make sense and he must be lying. He wasn't, He just hadn't worded it right on the forum... but that was a comment on an internet forum not a formal witness statement

Lamilad reported the session became brutal, regarding jake as a smart cookie who gave him a rough ride. Lamilad gave as good as he got... and then some! It nearly turned into a slanging match a couple of times. The judge was surprisingly lenient with the parties shouting at each other across the desk.

In the final judgment the judge insisted it was either PoFA compliance or proof of driver and Excel had neither. The judge ruled Jake's case, though well argued, was 2 dimensional and lacked any real substance. The judge wanted something concrete and Jake couldn't offer anything.

Costs of £104.50 were awarded to Lamilad.

Prankster Note

Comments on forums are monitored by parking companies and can be used against you. As Lamilad pointed out, your words can be twisted to try and mean something else.

Always be careful when posting on forums.

Lamilad has said he will make available the transcript from hearing #1, which will be helpful to anyone defending a case where they were not the driver.

About Me

The Parking Prankster is dedicated to putting the fun back into parking. Sometimes there is a serious side too, as the prankster highlights scams and ruses used by the darker side of the parking industry to part you from your money.
Please contact me with parking stories you think would make interesting blog posts either via email prankster@parking-prankster.com or my twitter feed, @ParkingPranks